The present invention relates to an alarm electronic timepiece and more particularly to an improvement in circuitry for controlling a tone quality and a sound volume of a timepiece alarm.
Sound emitting bodies of the conventional alarm electronic timepieces are driven by a piezo-electric element, an electromagnetic buzzer or the like at a frequency within an audible frequency band. However, in order to use the piezo-electric element and the electromagnetic buzzer as a sounding body in an electronic timepiece, there are several difficulties and insufficiencies with respect to miniaturizaton and power consumption which must be overcome Namely, the piezo-electric element type is superior with respect to low power consumption but inferior with respect to the tone quality. On the contrary, as for the electromagnetic buzzer, the tone quality is superior and a comfortable electronic sound is realized, moreover the tone quality and the sound volume can be varied by the modulation of the driving signal. However, the power consumption of the electromagnetic buzzer is larger than the piezo-electric element type. As for the conventional type, the tone quality and the sound volume thereof were inferior since the ability to adjust the sound volume as necessary is not provided and thus the alarm function did not work well.